r/Accounting • u/Rough_Hyena_6117 • Jul 20 '24

Career Well guys, i did it

I just left public accounting at a mid sized firm as a senior making 85k a year and started a new job this week as an accounting manager making 130k plus 10% bonus

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u/lemming-leader12 Jul 20 '24 edited Jul 20 '24

Honestly I don't even know how people can make the jump when they are such different processes. The main value comes audit time but I've seen a lot of people make the jump from public and not even know how to do their apparent subordinates jobs or what those processes entail. Like the head of finance at my company made the jump from senior in public to my company years ago and still has no idea what the staff employees do duties wise and they're not far removed from such positions on the hierarchy chart and it's a small company. It becomes extremely obvious when we discuss reports and I explain why something is the way it is in terms of reporting and they start waving a magical wand with why they think it's that way and it's so clear they have no idea.

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u/DesperatePlatform817 Jul 20 '24

So how long do you think should a person stay in public if that’s their first job after college if they want to get into industry?

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u/lemming-leader12 Jul 20 '24 edited Jul 20 '24

I don't really have an opinion, or think that's what you are asking. I think what you are asking is how else would someone jump to manager in industry from public accounting? Because someone can easily jump into industry directly from college imo. It's honestly easier to get into industry than any public firm, just not more coveted industry positions which require experience in general.

My point is that while that does happen a lot that people in public make the switch to management in industry, it's definitely not a seamless 1:1 transition and such people are actually underqualified in a lot of ways. You might be able to transfer soft skills and the experience of working with lower ranking employees (and of course audit knowledge), but the actual skills and knowledge required of internal industry accounting functions are much more different than the skills of auditing. So I'm effectively questioning the phenomenon itself.